


Gotta See! Gotta Know! Kakashi Sensei’s Real Mind

by giant_springtime



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dogs/Ninken mishmash storyline that i just ran with, Eventual Romance, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Hatake Kakashi is a Troll, Hatake Kakashi-centric, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Kakashi Hates Therapy, Konoha Gets a Therapist, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, POV Hatake Kakashi, Panic Attacks, Post-Naruto Time Skip | Naruto Shippuden, Spoilers for Kakashi Backstory, Spoilers for Naruto (Pre-Timeskip), Swearing, Therapy, Umino Iruka Needs a Hug, mentions of trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26955751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giant_springtime/pseuds/giant_springtime
Summary: Konoha finally gets a therapy office, and Kakashi's friends won't stop bothering him about going. So he does. And he fucking hates it.Especially the schoolteacher who keeps pestering him in the lobby.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Comments: 10
Kudos: 63





	1. and unto him, no second friend

“ _Maa_ , what we talking about today, Doc?”

“It’s your hour, Kakashi. What would you like to talk about?”

“I don’t have anything to report.”

“Now, I know that’s not true.”

Kakashi steps out of his therapist’s office while the sun is still in the middle of rising. He can hear Konoha’s signature bird song through the walls of the building, and occasional footsteps as people make their way down barren streets, thanks to the empty office’s silence. It seems he’s the only sucker who’s got issues between six and seven AM.

Well, at least they _say_ he’s got issues. Gai, Kurenai, even Sakura.

He scoffs beneath the fabric mask covering his face. Shinobi have been dealing with their issues privately since the dawn of time. But, _ooh_ , Konoha gets a therapy office and suddenly everyone starts claiming he’s unstable.

_Good grief._

Today he sat and listened to the doctor talk about his dogs. His damn _dogs_. Can’t a man live with his pets in _peace_ anymore without everyone claiming they signify something?

Apparently, the shrink said, his reliance on non-human interaction means he’s got _trust issues_. 

He has to forcibly stop his eyes from rolling back into his skull.

 _Right. Trust issues_.

If he has damn trust issues, then Gai has a low work ethic. Naruto has black hair. The Third is still kicking.

How could he be a team leader and have trust issues?

How could he be a team _member_ and have trust issues?

Every day, his life is placed in someone else’s Chakra infused hands. It’s in the damn job description. If he had trust issues, he’d be sorting files, or doing janitorial work, or fishing. He’d never let a fellow Shinobi stand at his back, striking down enemies in tandem. He’d never let someone else lead him into battle. He’d never protect his comrades to the point of near-death.

He’d never have become a Shinobi.

His footsteps aggravate the floorboards, sending creaks to break the silence as he steps into the building’s lobby and makes a beeline for the front door, even with his hands smashed into his pockets and back hunched. The furniture is upholstered in all colors of the rainbow- _wow_ , they look like pieces he’d have found in his grandmother’s house. If he ever cared to get to his appointment early enough, maybe he’d lay down for a snooze and see if the resemblance holds up. Probably not, though- nothing would beat the inherited armchair his grandmother had kept in her house. He used to curl up and sleep in it, rather than stick to the floor with his cousins, who always woke up with sore backs.

Too bad the damn thing shriveled up in that house fire. His grandma, too.

Shaking his head, Kakashi quickly blocks the smiling face of his grandmother from etching into his mind, remembering he’s still not at home. The therapy lobby is small- he’s almost covered it in three standard strides. The whole building is tiny, having been renovated from a closed-down sushi place which had capped out at twenty occupants, plus the kitchen. He’d never even heard of the restaurant until after it closed down. Now, the souls of dead fish are haunting him and making him talk about his problems.

If he stops to think about it, the air _does_ have a slight fish smell to it. Huh.

It’s as he evaluates if his wingspan could cover the entire room’s width (the verdict: probably, just by his fingertips), that he nearly stumbles over a pair of legs stretched before him. He dodges out of the way just in time but has to resort to catching himself on the edge of an adjacent loveseat, patterned with pink flowers that distort under the grip of his hands. Man, it’s _tight_ in here.

“Aren’t Shinobi supposed to be more graceful than that, Kakashi?”

Moving the magazine he’s reading (something about home decoration, not to Kakashi’s taste) into his lap, Umino Iruka grins up at him, eyes shimmering with way more excitement than what’s standard for an early morning. Like he’s happy to be in the therapy lobby. Or he’s happy to see Kakashi-

Who’s having to sweep fallen hair back behind his headband, the loose silver strands tickling the tips of his ears. He tries not to grimace behind his mask- he wasn’t supposed to see anyone he knew today. How had he not noticed Iruka sitting there? He didn’t even bring an _Icha Icha_ to make him look occupied.

“And what’s a schoolteacher like you doing in a place like this?” Kakashi quips, eyeing the legs that had almost sent him to the ground before moving his gaze back up to track how many more steps would send him to freedom (the answer: four). “In shorts on a school day, no less.”

Iruka scratches at the back of his neck, bicep flexing in a loose t-shirt. “Ah, I usually change after this before heading to school.” His gaze flicks over Kakashi with the speed of a professional dress-coder. “I could ask you the same thing, you know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without your hair up- you look shorter!”

And the sheer _audacity_ \- it’s not like his shrink ever cares that he shows up fresh out of bed. He usually goes home right after to style his hair, grab his vest. Throw some kunai.

At that, Kakashi turns on his heel to march towards the front door, stepping around Iruka’s feet. “Bye, Sensei.”

“No, no, wait.” Iruka’s voice behind him is undercut with laughter. “I’m just kidding!”

Four steps later and after he slips out the door, Kakashi offers Iruka a short wave over his shoulder in farewell. In the next moment, he’s gone, bounding across rooftops towards home. Back to his dogs. Who he will use as substitutes for human connection.

 _What a bunch of bullshit_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from the Alfred Tennyson poem "In Memoriam"
> 
> i'm thinking this fic will be under 5000 words, but i wanted to try out posting multiple chapters for the first time.  
> the next chapter will be up within the week. thanks for sticking around!


	2. wisdom is higher than a fool can reach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here is the proposed angst.  
> please be warned that there are panic attack experiences in this chapter, but i tried to keep them relatively undetailed!!  
> thank yall for reading!

The Hokage’s office smells of stale tea, sweat, and lipstick, characteristic of another Tsunade work-binge. A glowing, sunny afternoon reflects through the office’s windows, and Kakashi can hear kids laughing down on the street below. The joy of having no Shinobi responsibilities.

Not that he ever got to experience it.

His foot barrels through a stack of papers on the floor, sending them careening all across the room, as he walks up to the Hokage’s desk. Shizune barely represses a curse as she rights the papers, shooting Kakashi more than a few death glares.

Tsunade doesn’t even look up from the words she’s scribbling onto a scroll as Kakashi pauses before her.

“Uh, what did you need me for?” Kakashi scratches at his temple with a lone finger. “And may I say, Tsunade, you’re not looking too good- shouldn’t you go home and sleep?”

“No time.” Tsunade answers, even brushing past the small jab, and probably unaware of how disheveled her ponytail has gotten. “How’s therapy going?”

_Good god, please release me from this hell._

Kakashi rolls his visible eye, with no response from the Hokage, which makes him swear under his breath. “It’s fine.”

“Just fine?”

“Yes. Can I go?”

“Not yet.”

Shizune elbows past him with a new stack of papers that’s nearly taller than her. They wobble with her rapid footsteps and barely make it into the Hokage’s arms without tumbling to the floor.

“Honestly, it seems like you’re busy, so I can come back another-“

“Iruka said he saw you there.”

_Please, a Chidori to the heart._

Kakashi’s teeth grind together so loud that he can hear them through his mask, fists clenched in tight balls at his side. “Of course he did, the bastard.”

“He said you didn’t look too good. Everything okay?”

“ _Yes_ , it's just because I wasn't all glammed up in this damn uniform. Is that all?”

“No,” Tsunade sighs, slapping red stamps onto a pile of forms. “he meant you didn’t seem good… emotionally.”

A barking laugh rushes out of his chest, sending a puff of air back into his face from his mask. “Well, it’s not like Iruka knows a damn thing about me, so how the _hell_ could he gauge-“

“Kakashi.”

"I mean, really, isn't it an invasion of my privacy for him-"

Tsunade- _no_ , the Fifth Hokage- sets down her stamp and finally looks up to meet his eye, cutting off Kakashi's complaint. Her bangs have fallen into her face, even sticking to her skin, but her eyes still cut through like they’re gazing straight into Kakashi’s soul. Is that a medical-nin power?

“Kakashi.”

“Yes?”

“With your therapist, have you talked about Sasuke yet?”

For how much he jokes about the “Sasuke topic” being off-limits from Sakura and Naruto, he’d never admit that hearing the kid’s name makes his own insides crush into a nasty ball of shame. Tsunade’s asking him about Sasuke- Sasuke, the kid he lost. The kid he let get away. The kid he let be led away by people more sinister than he’s ever seen.

It used to keep him up at night. Staring at the ceiling of his empty apartment, questioning if the kid was even still alive. And why, _why_ , the need for revenge was more powerful than anything else in his small body. So powerful that it had brought Naruto to death more times than he should ever have had to experience.

And Kakashi remembers that day, rain pouring down his face and chest heaving as he and Pakkun moved through the forest with a speed he’d never reach again. The way, at the base of that god-forsaken waterfall, Naruto’s body lay battered from the force of a fight between gods. And that he was too late.

His team was broken. Yet again.

The worst part- the kicker, if you will- was the fact that it could’ve been him. He, a child with as much pain and darkness and loss as Sasuke, could’ve easily been taken too. And, in his own way, he _had_ been taken. By ideals, rules, expectations. The burning need to be something that his father wasn’t, yet at the same time wanting to be something his father would’ve been proud of.

If he and Sasuke are such kindred spirits, then why the _hell_ wasn’t he able to stop him? He should’ve tried harder. He should’ve done more. He should've been there to stop him. 

Like an empty cup keening to be filled, his mind falls back into an ocean of disgust. And that’s really what it is, isn’t it? That he _hates_ himself. Hates that he can’t get over Rin, over Sasuke, over his damn father. Hates that he’s losing his aura of relaxed composure in public, in front of the Hokage. Hates that this damn therapy has left him feeling so raw and _vulnerable_.

Like dogs broke free from their cages, his thoughts roar, make his ears ring. Panic, tight in his chest and shaky in his legs, hasn’t visited him in a very long time, but as leashes slip through his fingers and the rampage on his mind continues, he’s far past the point of ignorance. What he needs is control, now. To collect the spirals, the faces, the memories, and shove them back into boxes they should never have escaped from.

Especially not here, away from blissful isolation.

He can feel his mask cracking as he stands before Tsunade, avoiding the Hokage’s eyes and instead trains them on the steam rising from a cup Shizune just poured.

At least, though, his black mask will finally serve its purpose. If the Hokage wasn’t so vigilant, he bets he could’ve gotten away with his reputation intact. But the low spike in chakra that he feels in the air is painfully familiar, a signification that he’s not as sly as he thinks he is.

Sympathy. It radiates from the Hokage, as strong as if she punched him in the face. Intimate, too, he knows. Personal. Her one weakness is an inability to keep vulnerability to herself, which is why she can equate her pain to his own.

Clearing his throat a few times, he finally speaks. “No. I haven’t.”

Tsunade is around the desk before he can step away, resting a firm hand on his shoulder and squeezing so his shirt bunches beneath her fingertips. Her lips are upturned in a small smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, which shimmer with damp above dark circles. “It’s okay, Kakashi. But you really should think about bringing it up. I think talking about it would help you.”

“I don’t need help.”

Tsunade just looks at him as she steps away, eyebrows raised, and hand falling from his shoulder.

Once she crashes back down into her desk chair, she waves him off in dismissal. He wastes no time in activating his teleportation jutsu, where he lands on the street outside the Hokage’s office.

One foot in front of the other, he makes his way back home.

A week later, Kakashi walks out of his therapy session (he half-listened to the Doc talk about his constant tardiness while trying to get Sasuke out of his mind) and sees Iruka sitting magazine free and holding a to-go cup out to him.

Coffee.

He spares Iruka a glance out of the corner of his eye as he walks by, before turning to absent-mindedly pick at his nails and march out the door.

Laying in bed that night, watching streetlights cast odd-shaped shadows onto the ceiling, Kakashi wishes for the first time in his life that he could cry. He wishes so badly- because maybe, just maybe, it would lift some of the weight off of his chest. Help him breathe.

Instead, he’s stranded in the tightness that comes between sobs, choking on his thoughts but unable to move the lump out of his throat. Feels a sharp burn behind his eyes, like he'd activated the Sharingan for too long, but for the life of him cannot get a tear to fall out and grant him relief. It’s almost poetic, really- the man who has lost everything cannot even scream through his sorrows.

Somewhere between the traumatic and grotesque, his mind offers the lone image of a tanned hand gripping a paper cup. An anchor. An offering.

Maybe if do-overs existed, he would go back and take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from Phyllis Wheatley's poem "On Virtue"


End file.
